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News from the Topic Center (full list)

The July 2016 version of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2014-2018. (more...)

The December 2015 version of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2014-2018. (more...)

Dominique Richard has been awarded the 2015 Grand Binding Prize for nature and environment protection in a ceremony in Vaduz, Liechtenstein on Friday 6 November. The prize was in recognition of her commitment and more broadly of the ETC/BD's work in helping to create the Natura 2000 network of protected areas. (more...)

The July 2015 version of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2014-2018. (more...)

The December 2014 version of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2014-2018.
The newsletter is produced 2 times a year at regular intervals. (more...)

The July 2014 edition of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2014-2018.
The newsletter is produced 2 times a year at regular intervals. (more...)

Based on the Member States data and assessments reported for the period 2007-2012, the EEA and its ETC on Biological Diversity have produced assessments for each biogeographical or marine region at the EU level based on a methodology agreed with the Member States and the European Commission. A public consultation on these assessments (more...)

In support to the High level Conference on Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) in Europe held in Brussels on i.e 22/05/2014, Biodiversity day, the BISE portal was upgraded and updated, providing access to information on initiatives on mapping ecosystems and their services (more...)

There is a long history of mapping both habitats and vegetation, using both field and remote sensing methods in Europe and, largely due to the 1992 EU Habitats Directive, there has been a marked increase in habitat mapping of large areas in the European Union over the past 25 years. This report, initiated by (more...)

Member States have started delivering their reports as required by Article 12 of the Birds Directive. Eighteen Member States delivered by the agreed deadline (31st December) while another country has delivered more recently. The ETC/BD maintains a scoreboard (more...)

The December 2013 edition of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2009-2013.
The newsletter is produced 2 times a year at regular intervals. (more...)

The July 2013 edition of the ETC/BD newletter is now available
The newsletter aims at providing information on activities led by the Consortium in the framework of the multi-annual European Environment Agency’s Strategy 2009-2013.
The newsletter is produced 2 times a year at regular intervals.
(more...)

Member States have started delivering their reports as obliged under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive. By the deadline of the 1st of July nine Member States had delivered.
The ETC/BD has created a scorebord to provide an overview of the state of play of the reporting. (more...)

Pozdraviti Hrvatsku (Welcome Croatia)
Croatia joined the EU on the 1st July bringing the number of EU Member States to 28 and adding to the EU’s biodiversity. To reflect this, there have been some additions to the annexes of the Habitats Directive with 2 new habitats added to Annex I and 14 species to Annexes II & IV. Further details are given in the latest Natura 2000 newsletter. Descriptions of the new habitats are included in the latest edition of the Interpretation manual of European Habitats. (more...)

A new edition for the EU28 has just been published following its approval by the Habitats Committee last month. The major changes are the addition of 2 new habitats requested by Croatia ('32A0 Tufa cascades of karstic rivers of the Dinaric Alps' and
'6540 Sub-Mediterranean grasslands of the Molinio-Hordeion secalini') and a revision of habitat 8140 Eastern Mediterranean screes to cover variation in the west Balkans. The opportunity has been taken to correct EUNIS habitat codes for marine habitat types and to make some other minor corrections. (more...)

The latest version of the nationally desinated protected areas in Europe (the CDDA dataset) is available on the EEA data service . The site contains the database, the GIS data and the QA/QC reports (more...)

The EEA has just published 'Protected Areas in Europe- an overview'. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of protected areas and aims to assist policy makers and the wider public in understanding the complexity of the current systems of protected areas. This report was the result of several months of collaborative and very productive work amongst the ETC/BD and the EEA. (more...)

Satisfied with the EEA?
Take the survey to have your say. The EEA is about to undertake a thorough evaluation of its work and services. This is done to assess how effective and efficient the Agency is
(more...)

The EEA have recently launched 'Streamlining European biodiversity indicators 2020: Building a future on lessons learnt from the SEBI 2010 process". Sophie Conde from the Core Team, Ben Delbaere, Lawrence Jones-Walters, Amor Torre-Marín (all from our partner ECNC) were the key contributors to this report. (more...)

Members of the core team have recently published a paper on aspects of Natura 2000. ‘Connectedness and connectivity of the Natura 2000 network of protected areas across country borders in the European Union’ by Otars Opermanis Brian MacSharry Zelmira Sipkova, together with Ainars Aunins from the University of Latvia, and published in Biological Conservation examines network connectedness and connectivity across national boundaries. (more...)

The Service du Patrimoine Naturel (SPN) of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle is searching for an intern to help with its programme of habitat mapping (CARHAB), in particular to assist with a survey of current experience across Europe and to prepare a review of national or regional habitat mapping in Europ (more...)

An Emerald seminar was held at Bar, Montenegro, in November to assess the proposals for Areas of Special Conservation Interest (ASCI) from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, there were also representatives from Kosovo under UNSCR 1244/99. The meeting was hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency of Montenegro. (more...)

Many of the habitat types noted on Annex I of the Habitats Directive are dependent on agriculture to a greater or lesser extent. In 1998 Ole Osterman published a list of such habitats. With the addition of new habitats and redefinitions of existing habitats due to the EU expanding from 15 to 27 Member States, his list has become dated. The ETC-BD has updated this list and it is now available on the 'online first' page of the journal 'Biodiversity & Conservation' . (more...)

The ETC/BD and the Council of Europe are organising a ‘Preparatory Biogeographical seminar of 6 West Balkan countries’. This seminar will take place in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris on 26 and 27 January. The meeting will be chaired by Dr Jan Plesnik (AOPK), Chair of the Bern Convention Standing Committee. (more...)

The European Environment Agency (EEA) released it 4th State and Outlook of the Environment report, SOER 2010, on the 30th of November. The report is a comprehensive assessment of how and why the environment of Europe is changing and what we are doing about it. (more...)

The most recent version of the World Database on Protected Areas and its sister website protectedplanet were updated on the 19th of October to include the latest set of boundaries from the Common Database on Designated Areas (CDDA). (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The tenth and final message on 'Cultural landscapes and biodiversity heritage' was released in late September. (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The ninth message on 'Coastal ecosystems' was released in late August. (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The eighth message on 'Mountain ecosystems' was released in late July (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The seventh message on 'Agricultural ecosystems' was released in late June
(more...)

The Biodiversity Information System for Europe (BISE) a key instrument to ensure the provision of information relating to Biodiversity in Europe, was officially launched at the opening session of Green Week on the 1st of June. (more...)

The 'Biodiversity baseline' was unveiled at the opening session of the Green Week conference in Brussels. The 'Biodiversity baseline' for Europe provides a series of facts and figures on the different components of biodiversity. The ETC/BD was heavily involved in the production of this baseline. (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The sixth message on 'Urban ecosystems' was released in late May (more...)

Since 2000 the 22nd of May has been proclaimed by the UN to be the International Day for Biodiversity, in addition this year 2010 has been designated the International Year of Biodiversity by the UN which makes the 22nd of May 2010 a very special day for biodiversity. (more...)

The Green Week Conference organised by European Commission is the largest annual conference on European environmental policy. This year, in keeping with 2010 being the International Year for Biodiversity, the focus is on biodiversity. The event is held in Brussels from the 1st to the 4th of June. (more...)

Doug Evans from the ETC/BD participated in the PhD course on “International forestry and global issues” held in Nancy, France on May 17-21. The course was organised by the French Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) together with the European Forest Institute (EFI). (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The fifth message on 'Forest Ecosystems' was released in early April (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The fourth message on 'Marine Ecosystems' was released in mid March (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The third message is on 'Freshwater ecosystems' (more...)

The EEA's '10 messages for 2010' will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October. The second message is on 'Protected areas'. (more...)

To celebrate the launch of the International Year of Biodiversity on 11 January, the European Environment Agency (EEA) is commencing a series of concise, thematic assessments of biodiversity, entitled '10 messages for 2010'. The first of these '10 messages for 2010' presents the interaction between climate change and biodiversity (more...)

A new version of the Birds Directive (2009/147/EC) now exists which replaces the previous 1979 version. The 2009 Birds Directives replaces the 1979 version of the Birds Directive (79/409/EEC), Annex VII of the 2009 Directive gives a correlation table between the 1979 Directive and the 2009 Directive. (more...)

Article 17 of the Habitats Directive requires that every 6 years Member States prepare reports to be sent to the European Commission on the implementation of the Directive. The Article 17 report for the period 2001-2006 for the first time includes assessments on the conservation status of the habitat types and species of Community interest. You can find the composite report ... (more...)